Tag: Oakville Half-Marathon

This week, I faced what was probably the biggest challenge of my marathon training of the summer: finding time for the long run. My schedule was busy enough with a few overnight shoots while prepping for back to school and keeping the boys busy in the second last week of summer. Throwing marathon training into the mix was simply another test in creativity and time management.

Members from Lions Valley Athletics about to coach runners training for the Oakville Half-Marathon.

Yesterday, my run club, Lions Valley Athletics, volunteered to organize a training run over all or part of the Oakville Half-Marathon course for participants. It was a win-win for so many. Runners had an opportunity to run the course, we collected donations for the Oakville-Milton Humane Society, and Lions Valley Athletics had the opportunity to give back to the running community. While I wanted to focus on my own training – to run long on my own – it was a great opportunity for me support other runners in their personal goals. So I ran 18K on my own and finished at Coronation Park, where the group met. After that, I ran another 17K with them, finishing the day’s mileage with 35K.

I was thrilled with hitting that distance (which equates to 22 miles). It wasn’t just reaching it, though, that was important; it was what I learned along the way. Since the training run was with new runners, the pace was slower than what I normally train at. Knowing this, I made sure that my earlier run was at my marathon pace so that I could run like a Kenyan with the others. You see, Kenyans run really slowly on their easy days so that their bodies can recover from the speed workouts and hard running that they do on others. This is something that I’m not good at: mixing up the paces. Coach Kevin and my friends often tease me about being a metronome because I tend to lock into a pace and hold it; the problem is I run that pace through the warm-up, workout and cool down. Yesterday, I learned to slow my pace down. I had to because that is what the other runners needed. I learned how to “run like a Kenyan.”

Now I finally understand how much of a difference in variety of paces – from a marathon pace to an easier cool down pace – makes in how I feel the next day. Today, my legs feel fresh. I’m pleasantly tired, but I couldn’t wait to head out for an easy run this morning. And the best part? My feet don’t hurt – at all.

Yesterday, the ladies we coached through the route left feeling that they had a good run and are ready for their half-marathon in a few weeks. Me, I left with a better understanding of pacing, the success of the longest run yet in my marathon cycle and satisfaction of supporting other runners. It was truly a win-win.

We’ve all had it, a busy day when you plan to run or work out and – bam! – something gets in the way. When this happens to me, I end up feeling anxious because I have missed something important, well, something that is important to me.

In the past year, I’ve learned to have a back up plan for those days when life gets hectic. And let’s face it: with two boys and a full-time job, life is bound to get in the way of things that I want to do. Plan B might be something as simple as running later in the evening rather than right after work, but having it helps me make sure that I get my mileage in.

Over the past few days, we have had some “irregularities” at home. The Littlest Dude did some television extra work in Toronto and I did some background work on overnight shoots on Thursday and Friday. It’s fun and different but, the overnights it messed around with our routines. When I accepted the jobs, I was a tad worried that my training for Chicago would suffer, but I also had the peace of mind that this is a recovery week for me so my mileage is a bit lower. On Wednesday, when The Littlest Dude worked, Plan A was to run when I got home; Plan B was to not fret it because it is a recovery week anyway. When we got home after 9:00, Plan B came into effect.

Planning my weekend runs around the two overnight shoots, though, was stressful. Normally, I have a long tempo run on Saturday, followed by a solid recovery run on Sunday. But knowing that I was going to get home from filming around 6:00 a.m., I wasn’t exactly sure how to fit it in? Plan A: If I have the energy (and sometimes I do), run long when I get home. Plan B: If I need to sleep, run in the late afternoon. It seemed simple enough until the short term forecast was out: 25C, feels like 30C, on Saturday afternoon.

Plan A seemed crazy but Plan B suddenly became plain stupid due to the problems I’ve been having with running in the heat. To complicate things, I volunteered to lead a training group run for the Oakville Half-Marathon tomorrow morning so I had to get my distance in today. “Six weeks to Chicago. Six weeks to Chicago. You’re almost there,” kept going through my head. I couldn’t just skip my long run.

While on the set last night, and after bouncing text messages back and forth with my husband, I came up with something new: add a Plan C. I could run shorter in the afternoon and do my long run on Sunday morning, with the bulk of my mileage before the group training. Suddenly the stress of uncertainty was gone. I had a Plan A (a possibility), Plan B (best scenario), and Plan C (not ideal but got the job done).

This morning at 6:05, I put my head on the pillow and closed my eyes knowing that I had two options left. I woke up at noon and realized it was going to be a hot afternoon. Plan C made the most sense; having that Plan C completely removed the stress of not running long today.